1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to displaying content to content observers such as television viewers and, in particular, to displaying targeted content to content observers. More particularly, the invention relates to the use of an auction system for selecting content—and, even more particularly, targeted content—for display to content observers.
2. Related Art
The direct marketing industry has demonstrated the value in being able to target content (in the case of direct marketing, typically an advertisement) to a particular type of consumer. A targeted advertisement increases the likelihood of stimulating a consumer's interest in a product or service. For example, the message that would be used effectively to sell a car to a family with children that places a high value on safety is clearly very different from the message that would be used effectively to sell the same car to a recent college graduate who is looking forward to the chance to spread their wings. Further, particular advertisers may desire to communicate only with particular consumers. For example, a manufacturer of feminine hygiene products may highly value the ability to show their commercial to a female, but will place little or no value on the ability to show the commercial to an elderly male viewer. Similarly, a skateboard manufacturer would love to show their advertisement to teens, but has little interest in showing the advertisement to viewers of other ages.
Like other content providers, content providers that deliver content for display on television (e.g., broadcast stations, cable operators) have an interest in delivering and displaying targeted content to television viewers. Television content providers desire to exploit the value of their product. Their primary vehicle for doing so is selling advertising time. Delivering custom advertisements targeted to particular viewers can increase the value of that advertising time. In many ways delivering custom television broadcast content is similar to the airline industry's efforts at yield management. Content providers (e.g., advertisers) have a period of time (e.g., 30 second commercial break in a television program) to present their message and if they don't extract the maximum value from this time then it is lost forever. Currently, television advertisers seek to target their advertising by picking appropriate television programs during which to show their advertisements. However, it is desirable to enable a more precise form of targeted marketing for television advertising and, more generally, to enable custom content delivery for use in display of television content (e.g., television broadcasts, on-demand television content delivery).
Access to advertising space can be distributed by auction. (See, for example, the advertisement auction services provided by adauction.com, as described, for example, at www.adauction.com.) Distributing access to advertising space by auction can enable those advertisers who most highly value particular access to advertising space to obtain that access. However, advertisement auctions have not enabled advertising space to be auctioned in real time as the advertising space becomes available for display of an advertisement. Nor have advertisement auctions enabled an advertising space to be auctioned off piecemeal to different advertisers who will present different advertisements within that space, i.e., advertisements auctions have not been used to enable targeted advertising. For example, advertisement auctions have not been used to enable different television advertisements to be presented to different television viewers at the same time.